BusinessWeek recognized Accenture for the highest entry-level pay—plus signing bonuses and first-year merit raises—in the consulting category. Accenture’s ranking on BusinessWeek magazine’s Best Places to Launch a Career list climbed significantly in 2007. Up twelve places from #20 in 2006 to number eight on this year’s list, Accenture outranked US competitors Hewlett-Packard (#57) and BearingPoint (#83). Deloitte & Touche ranked #1, with IBM (a newcomer to the list) taking the #4 spot. The results are based on a nationwide survey of career services directors, feedback from undergraduates at top US colleges and universities and detailed employer questionnaires on hiring, pay, benefits, training programs and retention. What the smartest companies know The BusinessWeek report says that the rankings of 95 US companies show that the smartest employers know they must adapt incentives to a new generation entering the workforce—one that expects a very different workplace from the one of their parents. “The employers that did best in our ranking recognize that they have to accommodate this generation,” BusinessWeek writes. To this end, the article continues, companies like Accenture are trying to appeal to “Generation Y” (born 1982 and later) by making themselves more transparent, flexible, responsive, even nurturing. The magazine also recognizes Accenture for the highest entry-level pay—plus signing bonuses and first-year merit raises—in the consulting category. According to John Campagnino, Accenture’s global recruitment lead, the quality of Accenture’s relationships with students was particularly critical in the career/campus center evaluation results. “The number of schools we recruit from, or even the number of students that ultimately join Accenture, isn’t what these results are about. Our ranking speaks to the great work our campus teams have done to establish, develop and maintain relationships on campus,” Campagnino said. Making a big splash on campus In discussions on the career survey with Accenture, BusinessWeek editors specifically mentioned alumni involvement with the recruiting process and making a “big splash” on campus as activities that stood out, according to Campagnino. “We know that students want more and frequent interaction with Accenture’s best people, and want to be better connected with Accenture overall,” Campagnino said. “Not only are we moving to sponsoring more programs and activities on target campuses, but we are moving to an overall ‘higher touch’ recruiting approach.” Campagnino added that Accenture stays close with candidates by sending exam care packages, office visit gifts and monthly newsletters. Other on-campus marketing activities include Accenture coffee sleeves, banners at campus bookstores, podcasts and ads on social networking sites like Facebook. Follow-up efforts such as buddy programs contributed to the higher ranking on BusinessWeek’s list, says Campagnino. He explained that the buddy program pairs an Accenture employee with a candidate in the later stages of the interviewing process, thereby providing peer “touch-points” throughout the offer decision, post-acceptance and onboarding processes. It also helps create a smooth transition into the Accenture environment by making new hires feel welcome and integrated. Once on board with Accenture, the campus hire attends one week of orientation followed by four weeks of core training.